Tahleen reviews: "One Summer: America 1927" by Bill Bryson

Title: One Summer: America, 1927
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Random House Audio, 2013 (print available through Doubleday)
Narrator: Bill Bryson

Rating: 4 stars

Of course you all knew I would get here eventually. Bill Bryson is one of my very favorite people in the whole world, and I love just about everything writes. As usual, I got an audio edition of his latest book, One Summer: America, 1927 and enjoyed his narration.

Bryson tells the many stories of what went on in the United States in the summer of 1927, as the title suggests. He mostly chronicles aviation and how Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic sparked off this huge reaction around the world, but he also talks about Babe Ruth and his record-breaking 60 home runs in a season, Al Capone, Sacco and Vanzetti, Prohibition, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, various sensationalized murders, and lots of other things. A lot happened that summer.

And that was part of the problem with the book, I think. There is TOO much going on. If I am going to read anything about history, I'd rather have Bryson write it, but the sheer amount of information in here made it difficult to keep everyone straight, especially since I was listening. I would often find myself wondering who he was talking about. That said, this made it easy for me to turn off and back on again without feeling like I needed to know what was going to happen next.

Bryson has this conversational tone that makes me feel like I'm hanging out with a very interesting and very smart friend. That's why I love his books, and that's why I will continue to buy them so long as he keeps writing them. He can make anything interesting, and I know a lot more now about the 1920s than I did before, that's for sure.

Disclosure: I bought this audiobook.

Tahleen reviews: "The Diviners" by Libba Bray

Title: The Diviners
Author: Libba Bray
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Rating: 5 stars

It's the Roaring Twenties, and Evie is positutely ready to trade her boring hometown in Ohio for the exciting New York City, even though she is in a sort of exile after revealing the less savory side of the town golden boy through a special gift she has. When she arrives at her uncle's Museum of Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, she's thrilled to be in a city of glamour and a swinging night life with her friend Mabel at her side and few new friends she meets along the way; but her uncle's profession ends up giving her more excitement than she bargained for. Soon she finds herself right in the middle of an investigation into a series of occult-based murders throughout the city. But when they get a bit too close to discovering the truth, Evie finds that she might be next.

Libba Bray has delivered with this one. It's a great period book, and the way she infuses the supernatural aspects are riveting. It's historical fiction steeped in American folklore and magic, leading to a thrilling chase of a dead killer around the city. It's told in third person, so we see various points of view, including the murder victims', though the story mainly revolves around Evie and another guy named Memphis, who lives in the heart of Harlem and deals with a special gift of his own (and the consequences of having it). Every character has his or her own history, clearly well thought out on Bray's part, though not everything is revealed in this volume. I'm eager to learn more about everyone and their pasts.

Bray dips into every part of New York City during Prohibition, into each group of people and many kinds of neighborhoods. We have African Americans in Harlem, immigrants in Hell's Kitchen, dancers who are stars, and pickpockets who are trying to just get by.

The plot itself will drive you to keep turning the pages until you know how it all ends, and even by the time you get to the end of the book you know there will be more. This book certainly has its own story arc, but throughout there is a setup for big things to come. I'm really looking forward to where it might be going.

Disclosure: Received from review via Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.